A few short weeks ago, while New Yorkers in every borough were hunkering down for a blizzard, actress Ruth Wilson was enjoying an evening away from The Great White Way in a the Hamptons. It was perhaps her first quiet moment in a string of highs in this new year: a Golden Globe win for her work on the steamy Showtime series The Affair, a move to New York City, and her Broadway debut alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in Nick Payne’s Constellations, a 68-minute show that explores the infinite possibilities of two human beings in parallel universes. As Ben Brantley wrote in a New York Times rave, “It’s boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy (or girl) gets and loses and gets girl (or boy) over and over again.”

What was going through your head when you heard them call your name at the Golden Globes?

It was a really hot room. I was sweating in this tight dress, and I never expected to win. There’s always a slim chance that you might but I really didn’t expect to win, with all those other actresses, and me being a fairly newcomer. I didn’t think I had a chance. When our show won, that was a complete surprise as well. So that happened and I was in complete shock. Then to have to get up and have to say something was a bit scary. I’m always quite zen in those moments. I just sort of do it. I go to a calm place when that stuff happens. And then I can’t really remember what happened! I deal with all the excitement later.

Have you been surprised by what a massive hit the show has become?

Completely! When you’re making something new like that – it is unique and it’s different and it’s a different narrative style. You don’t know what it’s going to turn out like and you don’t know whether it’s going to resonate or whether it’s going to work. I haven’t watched it in its entirety. It’s not that I don’t want to. I’m just so in it that I can’t necessarily watch it the way you can watch it. It doesn’t have the same effect on me because I’m watching myself.

Are people recognizing you more these days, now that the show has aired?

I think it’s the most I’ve been recognized. I think the combination of that plus the play – I’m in New York – if I go home, no one would recognize me. In New York at the moment, there are billboards everywhere. It’s a combination of those things that people start recognizing you more. And there are so many huge fans of The Affair. It’s mainly middle-aged women. I’m not sure what that means – they want to play out their sexual fantasies?

Gyllenhaal and Wilson during the opening night curtain call for Constellations.

By Sylvain Gaboury/PatrickMcmullan.com

What’s different about doing theater in New York compared to London?

I think the audiences are slightly different. You never get standing ovations at home, never. Maybe once. The Brits are very cynical. They don’t like showing emotion, so it takes a lot for them to get on their feet and clap. Here there’s a lot more of that, and it’s very nice. And you get a lot more – I had so many flowers at the opening. My dressing room looked like a morgue. It’s quite funny.

I’ve been wanting to do Broadway for a long time, so to come onto Broadway with a new show is very exciting for me. It’s rare to do new shows, it’s rare that they’re given a spotlight and that they transfer well and succeed. I’m really happy that this is what I’m doing rather than a classic, as my first piece. Have you seen it?

I saw it last weekend. I was hysterically crying. I was a mess.

It’s incredible. It’s incorporative of a whole lifetime in 68 minutes. What’s amazing is the writer wrote it at a time in his life when his father passed away and he met his now wife. So much was flowing out of him.

As you mentioned, it’s a short play, and it’s very fast paced. I was really struck by how you both had to transition so quickly from scene to scene: one minute you’re meant to be piss drunk and then, in a split second, you have to be very serious. How do you prepare for something like that?

It’s getting quick at those changes. You have to be really agile and kind of brave. We started off and obviously we had a real mathematical way of going through the scenes. I had trouble with moving quickly because I would get so lost in a moment. I’d be frozen. Jake’s much more on it, getting from scene to scene. He’d concentrate on that side of it while I would concentrate on the emotional side of it. And then we kind of learned from each other, and put it all together. And that’s why it’s so exciting and challenging and bold.

Do you have any pre-show rituals you have to do before you go on?

Not really. But we sort of do everything together. We have a sort of ritual of “eat.” Have a nap, warm up, and go. Lots of napping and lots of eating. I try not to stick to a specific routine.

Your most recent male co-stars have been Dominic West and Jake Gyllenhaal. Jake the American plays a Brit in Constellations, and Dominic the Brit plays an American in The Affair. Who’s got the better accent?

Jake, definitely. It’s incredible. It’s really hard to be specific with accents. He’s got such a British-ness down. He’s completely nailed the manner and the sentiment and the wisdom and the patience of a Brit. He sounds like where I’m from. It’s not posh English, which is probably a lot harder to do. He completely nailed it. And to do it in a play where you haven’t got a voice coach—to do it continuously for 68 minutes and be flawless is pretty impressive.